Quiet Dawn

“From a virtuoso of Haitian literature comes this stunning whorl of history, revolution, love, and politics. With vivid authority, Jean-Claude FignolÉ offers an intriguing and painful saga of a colonial family moving through history, painting portraits of many of the towering figures from Haiti’s colonial past. He situates a living, pulsing Haiti directly where it should be: at the axis of the twirling vortex of post-seventeenth-century Western history. It’s a pleasure to read this book and a lesson, as well, about how we can interpret the legacy of the crowded Atlantic drama in our day.” - Amy Wilentz, author of (Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti) “What good fortune to have Jean-Claude FignolÉ’s unique voice brought before us at last in this masterpiece of translation by Kaiama L. Glover and Laurent Dubois. Sensual and moving, multivalent and dynamic, FignolÉ’s Quiet Dawn takes on new life and, like Haiti itself, invites us to live through the 'fatality’ of a unique ‘history’-the gripping portrait of a place where, as the translators write, the ‘past is literally everywhere all at once." - Colin Dayan, author of (Animal Quintet: A Southern Memoir)